BR_Christianity is not great Flashcards
- CARD #1.
This book is an anthology written by over 20 Skeptic Brights. In the 23 chapters, each is a special commentary about early church history and the horrible atrocities the church put mankind through. It is like a court room judgment day for theology.//“Science and religion are incompatible because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies.”//Horrendous violence has been done by the church and justified by Christianity on massive numbers of helpless victims.//Between the 5th and 10th century this period is called the dark ages.
[MN: This shows the dark ages began right after Christianity was make the law of the land and oppositon was punished for Heresy! Heresy was normally always resulting in death, whether guilty or not. Example, the crusades and witch hunts. With witch hunts, torture and death was not enough punishment. The innocent victims were stripped of all land, houses and all personal possessions which went to the state of Mass. in the case of Salem witch trials. This was back in the 1600’s before our constitution. The constitution was mostly formed to protect innocent people from the vindictive bully mentality of the Christian church.]
Examples: now we have human rights. Judged by a jury. The right to have an attorney represent us. Protection from unjustified search and seizure. The right not to incriminate ourselves. Proof with facts, not opinion. The right to have freedom of religion. The separation of church and state. The right that you are innocent until proven guilty with actual facts, not spectral opinions like the witch trials. The right not to have the government force you to join a religion or cut your head off, or torture you to death like in the crusades and inquisitions. All of these rights are protection from what the Christian church did to humanity for more than a thousand years!
Our constitution makes the church act on a level playing field.
- The Catholic church child molestation scandals and their subsequent cover-ups concludes there is no justification for the continued existence of that church. p. 17.
[MN: My quote on religion, “Religion is a very popular psychology that turns its participants into prisoners of their own mind.”]
“Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die. It therefore has no reality check.” p. 24.
“The thing that uniquely defines religion is belief in supernatural entities. Without that belief, it’s not religion. And with that belief, the capacity for religion to do harm gets cranked up to an alarmingly high level–because there is no reality check.” p. 25.
“More wars have been waged, more people killed, and more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history.”–Charles Kimball, a liberal Christian scholar p. 26.
3. CARD #2.
“One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.” p. 26.
“Few things are more dangerous than people who think they are in possession of absolute truth. Honest inquiry with sincere questions and an open mind rarely contribute to the misery of the world.” p. 27.
“We are simply much better off without blind obedience to absolute commands made by preachers and bishops who claim certain knowledge of God’s will.”
“Faith helps Christians because faith is just like a placebo prescribed by a doctor. The intent of which is to deceive patients into thinking it will solve their ills. Doctors will prescribe these sugar pills if they conclude the ills are psychosomatics ones. Faith helps people through the difficulties of life just like a placebo helps in the healing of people with psychosomatic illnesses.” p. 31.
Faith is just a placebo. It helps believers only by providing them with a false hope, a false comfort, and a self-induced illusionary strength to live their lives.
So people will take their percieved healing/helping effect of placebos as evidence that their religous faith is the one true cure for what ails people.
Since believers think faith actually does something, they remain vulnerable to any absurd possibility, scam artist, or TV preacher. //Faith stuns one’s intellectual growth. //Humans have a very strong tendency to believe what we prefer to believe. We seek out confirming evidence rather than disconfirming evidence.
[MN: Do you know what the definition of faith is? That Religon is a psychology that makes people believe in make believe fantasies that hold no place at all in reality.//“The majority of people being conned have not a clue they are victims of a con psychology!” __From the book, The Con Game.]
Many people are incapable of trusting in their own abilities and are crippled with self-doubt. They may need the placebo of faith just like patients may need the placebos prescribed by their doctors. p. 33.
[MN: Examples, Geri, Dennis.]
- CARD #3.
Some people say that Christian faith has been better overall for the world. But this is explaining away the harmfulness, not analyzing it.
For example: We wouldn’t consider someone to be a good person if after saving a child from a burning vehicle he subsequently kicked that child in the teeth. Saving the child’s life would be considered the greater deed and better for the child overall. But that good deed would never exonerate such a person from the crime of kicking the child in the teeth afterward. We would still demand an explanation for why he kicked the child in the teeth. p. 34.
Matthew 7:20 Jesus reportedly says “By their fruits ye shall know them” When we evaluate the fruits of Christianity, the result is that it fails miserably.
Constantine won the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and defeated Maxentius in the year 312 CE to take the Roman throne. Then in 313 he decided to solidify his rule under one religion. So he insisted that the church come to an agreement about doctrine. The one doctrine the church wrestled with the most was that of the nature of Jesus. The Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 CE (138 years, 4 generations later) finally decided the orthodox doctrine of the incarnation. This brought much disagreement and there were vicious civil wars still reverberating two hundred years after Chalcedon.
The winner of these wars decided what orthodox doctrine would be for the next fifteen hundred years. p. 37.
[MN: So the Christian beliefs were simply decided by which faction won the wars. Had nothing to do with divine holiness or actual facts of reality.
So the New Testament came out in the 5th century, then doctrine was edited some two hundred years later after the civil wars, then it was further edited for at least another thousand years by kings, popes and the powers that be.]
5. CARD #4.
When Protestants rejected the religion of the Roman Catholic Church, there was even more religious violence beginning in the 16th century. In France (1562-1598) there were a series of eight wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants. These are known as the French Wars of Religion. The infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre took place during one of them. It started on the eve of the feast of Bartholomew, August 23, 1572. when a group of Huguenot leaders were slaughtered by Catholics. Lasting several weeks, the massacre extended across the countryside, where up to 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered.
[MN: When the Pope heard the news of the slaughter of 10,000 Protestants, he was so excited that he built a special room in the Vatican painted with battle scenes, floor to ceiling about the great victory for the Catholics. Today this room is closed to the public because the Catholic organization does not want people to know what they did in the past bloodbath of Protestants.)
The 30 years war (1618-1648) was one of the most destructive wars in European history. It pitted Christians against each other. Fought primarily in Germany, but other countries got involved as well. Catholics and Prostestants. So great was the loss of life from this war that estimates show 1/3 of the entire population of Germany was killed.
We are talking about a bloodbath between what most Christians today would call their brothers and sisters in Christ. p. 38.
- CARD #5.
Chapter 2: The failure of the church and the triumph of reason.
This chapter is mostly about the ignorance taught by the church.
What has the church done?
It taught that the business of this life was to prepare for death. That a certain belief was necessary to ensure salvation. It taught that the natural desires, ambitions and passions of man were all wicked and depraved. It taught to practice self denial, to overcome desire, to despise wealth, to hate prosperity, to repeat prayers, to wear rags, to live in filth. For centuries, they were the highest and most perfect virtures and those who practiced them were saints.
Did they give us any useful thing? Did they discover or show us how to produce anything for food? Did they teach us anything about science or healthcare?
For centuries it kept the earth flat, for centuries it made all the hosts of heaven travel around this world. It was the deadly enemy of medicine Disease was produced by devils and could be cured only by priests, decaying bones, and holy water. Doctors were the rivals of priest.
The church opposed the study of anatomy, was against the dissection of the dead. Man had no right to cure disease, God would do that through his priests. Man had no right to prevent disease. Diseases were sent by God as judgments.
It was a sin for a woman to lessen the pangs of motherhood. The church declared that woman must bear the curse of the merciful Jehovah.
It taught that the insane were inhabited by devils. Insanity could be cured by prayers, gifts, amulets and charms. All these had to be paid for. This enriched the church. It taught the awful doctrine of witchcraft. Old women were convicted for causing storms at sea, for preventing rain and for bringing frost. Girls were convicted for having changed themselves into wolves, snakes and toads. These witches were burned for causing diseases. All these things were done with aid of the Devil who sought to persecute the faithful, the lambs of God.
- It taught that a nun is purer, nobler than a mother. It induced millions of pure and conscientious girls to renounce the joys of life–too take the veil woven of night and death, to wear the habiliments (A habit the nuns wear, like a Burka was a clothing for the dead!) of the dead–made them believe that they were the brides of Christ.
The church was opposed to fire insurance–to life insurance. To insure your life was to declare that you had no confidence in God. To insure your life was to insult heaven.
It regarded epidemics like the Black Death as being sent by the eternal Father [MN: and dressed men up like big birds to scare off the plague)
They established asylums for the insane. But the insane were treated as criminals. They were tormented, chained and flogged, starved and killed. The asylums were prisons, dungeons. They were not trying to help men, they were fighting devils.
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8. CARD #6.
It founded schools where facts were denied, where science was denounced and philosophy despised. Priest were taught to hate reason and look upon doubts as the suggestions of the Devil. Schools where the heart was hardened and the brain shriveled. Schools in which lies were sacred and truths profane. Schools to prevent thought–to suppress knowledge.
They taught the world was flat. [MN: That angels moved the planets in the heavens and that the Earth was the very center of the universe and that the Earth was the very most important part of the Universe.//In the Church Universities, they hid the fact there were sunspots on the Sun, because they wanted students to believe everything God made was perfect. //Before anyone could go into the Swiss Alps, the church had to purify the area and bless it to drive the dragons away.//They taught the Earth was 5,000 years old and that the stars were tiny windows of heaven so we could see our future home.]
No church member taught the Earth was round, it was a sailor named Magellan. He left Seville, Spain, August 10, 1519 sailed west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached Seville, the port it left on Sept. 7, 1522. The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round. There had been a dispute between the scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the sailor’s side.
Circa 1543, Copernicus invented the telescope. In 1610, Galileo demonstrated the truth of the Copernican system, and in 1632 published his work on “The system of the World. “
[MN: The Church placed Galileo under house arrest and made him recant his saying that the world wasn’t the center of the universe and that planets orbited around the Sun, not the earth. The church burned at the stake his friend Bruno, and told Galileo to recant or he was to be burned at the stake next if he didn’t immediately recant. Galileo recanted his story to stay alive. About 294 years later, after we flew to the moon, the Catholic church officially apologized to Galileo and admitted he was correct that the Earth was not the center of the universe. This apology came 294 years later!]
- CARD #7.
The church taught absurdities like:
- The planets are moved around by angels.
- Eclipses were caused by the wrath of God.
- Comets came as a sign of destruction of empires or the death of kings.
- Stars wheeled in their orbits caused by the actions of men.
- The dawn appears in the East because the East is sacred.
People have discovered that the story of creation as told in the sacred book is not only untrue, but utterly absurd and idiotic. Now we know that all religions are substantially the same. They are all founded on ignorance and fear.
We have discovered that its gods and devils, its heavens and hells, were borrowed–that its ceremonies and sacraments were souvenirs of other religions and that it all was made up by savage man.
We have been rescued from the prisons of fear, and snatched our souls from the fangs and claws of superstition’s loathsome, crawling, flying beasts. We have been given the liberty to think and the courage to express our thoughts. Now we have been clothed in our right minds and made truly free. p. 52.
I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught us how to use our minds in the great search for truth.
The inventor of matches did more for the comfort and convenience of mankind than all the founders of religions and the makers of all creeds–than all malicious monks and selfish saints.
I thank the great scientists who have built upon facts and make theologians look silly. The scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow men. They forged no chains, built no dungeons, tore no flesh with red hot pincers. Dislocated no joints on racks, extinguished no eyes, tore out no tongues and lighted no fagots.
10. CARD #8.
Chapter 3.
Science has earned our trust by its proven success. Religion has destroyed our trust by its repeated failure.
Using the empirical method, science has eliminated smallpox, flown men to the moon, and discovered DNA. If science did not work, we wouldn’t do it.
Relying of faith, religion has brought us inquisitions, holy wars, intolerance, and antiscience. Religion does not work, but we still do it.
Religon is a set of practices intended to communicate with that invisible world and entreat it to affect things here in the natural world.
Believing “on faith” is considered a virtue rather than the delusion it really is.
Surely it is no coincidence that the onset of the Dark Ages coincided with the rise of Christianity. It was only with the revolts against established ecclesiastic authorities in the Renaissance and Reformation that new avenues of thought were finally opened up allowing science to flourish. p. 62.
[MN: Here it is, proof that Christianity caused the Dark Ages.]
In the Dark ages, much of Greek and Roman science and philosophy was lost in Europe but preserved and developed to new heights in the Islamic empire.
- When the Roman Catholic Church founded the first universities in Europe, Aristotle became the prime authority. Scholars used his logic, science, and philosophy to forge an amalgam of Greek and Christian thought that became known as scholasticism.
Significantly, the scientific revolution occurred OUTSIDE the church dominated universities, which remained steeped in Aristotelian scholasticism. Today, our secular universities lead the way in science while students at many church connected universities and colleges are being taught creationism and other pseudosciences, along with mind numbing biblical apologetics.
[MN: Note that the church used Aristotle teaching rather than modern scientific facts.]
Galileo was the only one of the founders of the new science who tried to separate science from religion.
In the period of the Enlightenment, thinkers in Europe and America began to distinguish science and philosophy from theology.
When geologists showed that Earth was much older than implied in the Bible, and Darwin provided both the evidence and the theory for how life evolved without the need for God, the foundations of religious belief began to crumble.
Faith is a folly. It requires belief in a world beyond the senses with no basis in evidence for such a world and no reason to believe in it other than the vain hope that something else is out there.//Is the Bible the literal word of God? 1/3 of the general population believe it and 64% of white evangelicals believe it.//Magical thinking and blind faith are the worst mental system we can apply under these circumstances. They allow the most outrageous lies to be accepted as facts.
From its very beginning, religion has been a tool used by those in power to retain that power and keep the masses in line.
End of Chapter 3.
12. CARD # 9.
Chapter 4.
[MN: Skipped most of this chapter because it is highly repetitive. Blind faith overrules facts for most people.]
Faith is an epistemology–it’s a method of coming to knowledge and conclusions that result from this epistemology are knowledge claims.
Now the question, “How could someone’s beliefs determine what is true?”
… He told me matter of factly that it was his faith and thus did not require definitive evidential support or argument. p. 76.
Three facts://Ultimately, there is no way around the following three facts:
- Faith is an epistemology
- In religious contexts, the term faith is used when one assigns a higher confidence value to a belief than is warranted by the evidence
- Some people live their lives based upon their faith based beliefs.
Conclusions one comes to as the result of an epistemological process are knowledge claims. A knowledge claim is an assertion of truth.//Jesus walked on water is a knowledge claim–an objective statement of fact.
MN: Again, my question, “How could someone’s beliefs determine what is true?” Believers accept these knowledge claims as facts. They do not even consider it important to have any facts of evidence. Ergo, in my words, they become neurotics believing these placebos and live a happy life in their psychologically induced theology bubble.]
[MN: “Don’t confuse me with the facts. I am very happy living in my theology bubble.]
- CARD #10.
PART TWO OF THE BOOK.
Chapter 5: Crusades, Inquisitions, Centuries of Christian Violence.
Christianity is exceptional among the major religions for beginning with a killing and for keeping killing central to the faith ever since.
This chapter will focus on two episodes of Christian violence, violence officially authorized and highly institutionalized–namely, the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Church father Tertullian (160-225 CE) strongly urged believers to seek martyrdom, since the Christian’s won blood was his or her only key to the gates of heaven.
Tertullian’s contemporary, Origen (180-253 CE) also insisted that the only way for a Christian to save his/her life was to lose it through martyrdom! [MN: Unbelievable ignorance that during these times martyrdom was the only way to heaven!]Justin Martyr recommended not resisting evil, not defending oneself, not even notifying the police if one was robbed, and happily dying for Christ instead of killing for him.
[MN: So, before the church was established in the 4th/5th century. Dying for Christ was the only way to be saved. This thinking was pushed by the early church fathers, and it paid no attention at all to the four gospels saying it was a free gift, plus all the happiness of Christian living with blessing galore, like Jesus talked about in the Beatitudes.//Keep in mind there were well over 100 gospels during this time.]//Almost as soon as the Church stopped being persecuted, it began persecuting. The religion of peace and love had turned deadly.//With Augustine, Christianity had the permission it needed to evolve from a pacifist to a militarist religion.
He was doing the heretic a favor by coercing “those who left the flock to return to Catholic unity. “ /Augustine and his successors viewed persecution as religious coercion through a discipline discourse to chastise, reform even educate them.
The year 476 is commonly given as the offcial fall of the Roman Empire. The Dark Ages ensued, with tribal wars and petty squables.
For many of the combatants, military action was “little more than an extensive conquering expedition” dressed up in Christian garb.
Crusading was construed as an opportunity to do penance and earn a spiritual indulgence or remission from sin.//[MN: Just another example of “do this to get into heaven.”]
- Pope Eugenius III ordered up a second Crusade in late 1145.
Richard the Lionhearted (England) executed 2,700 Turkish captives after accepting a ransom payment for them, but they retreated before capturing Jerusalem. This provided the image of Christians as untrustworthy barbarians.
Rounding out a century of Crusades, Pope Innocent III dialed up a Fourth Crusade in 1198. It was to be the most ignominious expedition so far. On June 24, 1203, Western Catholic forces descended on the imperial city of Constantinople where Christianity had first been adopted by Constantine nearly 900 years earlier. After months of siege, the city fell to the Western Christians in April, 1204. It was subjected to three days of pillage and brutal massacre.
Even the Catholic New Advent online encyclopedia confesses that there was “ruthless plundering of its churches and palaces. The masterpieces of antiquity, piled up in public places and utterly destroyed.
Despite the fact that the Crusades accomplished nothing in the long run, other than alienating Muslims, their champion, the Catholic Church, continues to praise them to this day.
Crusading against the Enemy at Home:
p. 97. In 1147, Christian troops brought the true religon at the point of a sword to the Wends, Sorbs, Obotrites of Central Europe, and the Finns were attacked in 1154. Pope Celestine III announced a crusade in the Baltic region against Latvia in 1195. The Livonians were largely converted to Christianity by force around 1212.
Christian heritics were an abomination. King Pedro II of Aragon (Spain) ordered all remaining heretics to be burnt to death. Elsewhere, 80 heretics were burned at the stake at Strasbourg in 1212.
Sixty Cathars were burned at Les Casses and 400 more at Lavaur. Mass executions were also reported at Moissac in 1234 and
Montsegur in 1244.
p. 99.
15. CARD #11.
P.99
